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• Solo .NET Programmer moving to a team

  - by 219558af-62fa-411d-b24c-d08dab

  I've been a solo .NET programmer for a small startup for the last 8 years. I've put together some pretty decent software, and I always strived to better myself and conform to best practices, including source control (SVN/TFS). I worked very closely with a team of engineers of other disciplines, but when it came down to the software I was the only one programming. I love the craft of programming and love learning new things to sharpen my tools. In 2 weeks I will be starting a new job in a team of 20 .NET developers. My position will be mid-level, and I will be working under some programmers with incredibly impressive backgrounds. Again, the team aspect of development will be new to me, so I'm looking for some general "new guy" tips that will help me be as effective and easy to get along with as possible from the get-go. Anything goes, including high level tips, and small day-to-day things about communication. Thanks for any and all input!

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• Google Open-Sources Their Book Scanner

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Google has released the hardware and software source for their high speed/non-destructive book scanner–If you’re looking to scan a large volume of books, save yourself the design work and check out the Linear Book Scanner project. The design is pretty slick; the scanner uses vacuum pressure to automatically turn the pages as it works. Check out the video above to see a Google Tech Talk about the project and then hit up the link below to grab the hardware and software files. Linear Book Scanner [via Hack A Day] Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder? Why Your Android Phone Isn’t Getting Operating System Updates and What You Can Do About It How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows

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• What happened to .fx files in D3D11?

  - by bobobobo

  It seems they completely ruined .fx file loading / parsing in D3D11. In D3D9, loading an entire effect file was D3DXCreateEffectFromFile( .. ), and you got a ID3DXEffect9, which had great methods like SetTechnique and BeginPass, making it easy to load and execute a shader with multiple techniques. Is this completely manual now in D3D11? The highest level functionality I can find is loading a SINGLE shader from an FX file using D3DX11CompileFromFile. Does anyone know if there's an easier way to load FX files and choose a technique? With the level of functionality provided in D3D11 now, it seems like you're better off just writing .hlsl files and forgetting about the whole idea of Techniques.

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• I want to master ASP.NET - What concepts should I focus on/What concepts do you most value?

  - by Josh

  I start a job this summer doing work in ASP.NET 4 (C#). I plan on working with some legacy code as well as MVC. I want to get a running start. I have good understanding of HTML/CSS/Javascript, and pretty good understanding of C# itself, Design principles, Design Patterns, and understand masterpages, basic MVC2, and code behinds for web forms. In your opinion what aspects of ASP.NET are the most important to master for web applications? What do you value most in your usage of ASP.NET? Do you have a recommendation for understanding the internals of ASP.NET itself?

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• Drawing lots of tiles with OpenGL, the modern way

  - by Nic

  I'm working on a small tile/sprite-based PC game with a team of people, and we're running into performance issues. The last time I used OpenGL was around 2004, so I've been teaching myself how to use the core profile, and I'm finding myself a little confused. I need to draw in the neighborhood of 250-750 48x48 tiles to the screen every frame, as well as maybe around 50 sprites. The tiles only change when a new level is loaded, and the sprites are changing all the time. Some of the tiles are made up of four 24x24 pieces, and most (but not all) of the sprites are the same size as the tiles. A lot of the tiles and sprites use alpha blending. Right now I'm doing all of this in immediate mode, which I know is a bad idea. All the same, when one of our team members tries to run it, he gets very bad frame rates (~20-30 fps), and it's much worse when there are more tiles, especially when a lot of those tiles are the kind that are cut into pieces. This all makes me think that the problem is the number of draw calls being made. I've thought of a few possible solutions to this, but I wanted to run them by some people who know what they're talking about so I don't waste my time on something stupid: TILES: When a level is loaded, draw all the tiles once into a frame buffer attached to a big honking texture, and just draw a big rectangle with that texture on it every frame. Put all the tiles into a static vertex buffer when the level is loaded, and draw them that way. I don't know if there's a way to draw objects with different textures with a single call to glDrawElements, or if this is even something I'd want to do. Maybe just put all the tiles into a big giant texture and use funny texture coordinates in the VBO? SPRITES: Draw each sprite with a separate call to glDrawElements. Use a dynamic VBO somehow. Same texture question as number 2 above. Point sprites? This is probably silly. Are any of these ideas sensible? Is there a good implementation somewhere I could look over?

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• Loading levels from .txt or .XML for XNA

  - by Dave Voyles

  I'm attemptin to add multiple levels to my pong game. I'd like to simply exchange a few elements with each level, nothing crazy. Just the background texture, the color of the AI paddle (the one on the right side), and the music. It seems that the best way to go about this is by utilizing the StreamReader to read and write the files from XML. If there is a better, or more efficient alternative way then I'm all for it. In looking over the XNA Starter Platformer Kit provided by MS it seems that they've done it in this manner as well. I'm perplexed by a few things, however, namely parts within the Level class which aren't commented. /// <summary> /// Iterates over every tile in the structure file and loads its /// appearance and behavior. This method also validates that the /// file is well-formed with a player start point, exit, etc. /// </summary> /// <param name="fileStream"> /// A stream containing the tile data. /// </param> private void LoadTiles(Stream fileStream) { // Load the level and ensure all of the lines are the same length. int width; List<string> lines = new List<string>(); using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(fileStream)) { string line = reader.ReadLine(); width = line.Length; while (line != null) { lines.Add(line); if (line.Length != width) throw new Exception(String.Format("The length of line {0} is different from all preceeding lines.", lines.Count)); line = reader.ReadLine(); } } What does width = line.Length mean exactly? I mean I know how it reads the line, but what difference does it make if one line is longer than any of the others? Finally, their levels are simply text files that look like this: .................... .................... .................... .................... .................... .................... .................... .........GGG........ .........###........ .................... ....GGG.......GGG... ....###.......###... .................... .1................X. #################### It can't be that easy..... Can it?

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• Dealing with coworkers when developing, need advice [closed]

  - by Yippie-Kai-Yay

  I developed our current project architecture and started developing it on my own (reaching something like, revision 40). We're developing a simple subway routing framework and my design seemed to be done extremely well - several main models, corresponding views, main logic and data structures were modeled "as they should be" and fully separated from rendering, algorithmic part was also implemented apart from the main models and had a minor number of intersection points. I would call that design scalable, customizable, easy-to-implement, interacting mostly based on the "black box interaction" and, well, very nice. Now, what was done: I started some implementations of the corresponding interfaces, ported some convenient libraries and wrote implementation stubs for some application parts. I had the document describing coding style and examples of that coding style usage (my own written code). I forced the usage of more or less modern C++ development techniques, including no-delete code (wrapped via smart pointers) and etc. I documented the purpose of concrete interface implementations and how they should be used. Unit tests (mostly, integration tests, because there wasn't a lot of "actual" code) and a set of mocks for all the core abstractions. I was absent for 12 days. What do we have now (the project was developed by 4 other members of the team): 3 different coding styles all over the project (I guess, two of them agreed to use the same style :), same applies to the naming of our abstractions (e.g CommonPathData.h, SubwaySchemeStructures.h), which are basically headers declaring some data structures. Absolute lack of documentation for the recently implemented parts. What I could recently call a single-purpose-abstraction now handles at least 2 different types of events, has tight coupling with other parts and so on. Half of the used interfaces now contain member variables (sic!). Raw pointer usage almost everywhere. Unit tests disabled, because "(Rev.57) They are unnecessary for this project". ... (that's probably not everything). Commit history shows that my design was interpreted as an overkill and people started combining it with personal bicycles and reimplemented wheels and then had problems integrating code chunks. Now - the project still does only a small amount of what it has to do, we have severe integration problems, I assume some memory leaks. Is there anything possible to do in this case? I do realize that all my efforts didn't have any benefit, but the deadline is pretty soon and we have to do something. Did someone have a similar situation? Basically I thought that a good (well, I did everything that I could) start for the project would probably lead to something nice, however, I understand that I'm wrong. Any advice would be appreciated, sorry for my bad english.

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• Using Dependency Injection to Work with MessageBoxes in an MVVM Application

  Reviews a simple and testable way to show a MessageBox in any WPF or Silverlight application built with the MVVM design pattern

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• Computer Science Fundamentals - Recommended books

  - by contactmatt

  Hey, I'm looking to see if anyone can recommend any books in fundamentals of computer science. I obtained my associates degree as a programmer/analyst a couple years ago and I know a good amount about programming on the .NET framework. I'm even certified on the .NET 4 framework as a web application developer. However, since I was only able to obtain my associates degree, I was deprived at my college on the low-level basics and operations of computers and basic computer science information. I'm really interesting in learning about the low-level operations of a computer and in programming (bytes, bits, memory management, etc.) Can anyone recommend any good computer science books for someone who is decently experienced in programming? Thank You

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• Hard Copies VS Soft Copies

  - by Garet Claborn

  Where do you draw the line and say, "OK, I'm actually going to print out this piece of code, spec, formula, or other info and carry it around but these pieces can stay on disk." Well, more importantly why do you draw the line there? I've encountered this a number of times and have some sort of vague conceptions beyond "oh now I'm REALLY stuck, better print this out." I've also found some quicksheets of basic specs to be handy. Really though, I have no particular logic behind what is useful to physically have available in the design and development process. I have a great pile of 'stuff' papers that seemed at least partially relevant at the time, but I only really use about a third of them ever and often end up wishing I had different info on hand. Edit: So this is what I'm hearing in a nutshell: Major parts of the design pattern Common, fairly static and prominently useful code (reference or specs) Some representation of data useful in collaborating or sharing with team Extreme cases of tough problem solving Overwhelmingly,almost never print anything.

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• Solo .NET Programmer moving to a team

  - by 219558af-62fa-411d-b24c-d08dab

  I've been a solo .NET programmer for a small startup for the last 8 years. I've put together some pretty decent software, and I always strived to better myself and conform to best practices, including source control (SVN/TFS). I worked very closely with a team of engineers of other disciplines, but when it came down to the software I was the only one programming. I love the craft of programming and love learning new things to sharpen my tools. In 2 weeks I will be starting a new job in a team of 20 .NET developers. My position will be mid-level, and I will be working under some programmers with incredibly impressive backgrounds. Again, the team aspect of development will be new to me, so I'm looking for some general "new guy" tips that will help me be as effective and easy to get along with as possible from the get-go. Anything goes, including high level tips, and small day-to-day things about communication.

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• Licensing Theme Music from other games

  - by HS01

  As part of my game, I thought it would be fun to make a hidden level that pays tribute to Mario Bros (one of the earliest games I ever played). It would be themed in that way with 8-bit graphics and question mark blocks and completing the level would say "Thank you but the princess is in another castle" or such. For the sound track, I'm thinking of just overlaying the standard mario theme music by playing it on a virtual keyboard using a different instrument/timing or something. My question is, am I legally safe? I'm not using anyone else's actual music, I'm just playing the same tune in a different way myself. Do I have to get licensing for this?

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• Integrating Azure ServiceBus and SharePoint 2010

  - by Sahil Malik

  SharePoint 2010 Training: more information My new article is finally online. I had been waiting for this for a while. The thing is, AppFabric became .NET 4, and left SharePoint 2010 behind. But fear not, we have REST API. But that brings up interesting challenges of how we can integrate Azure Service Bus with SharePoint 2010 (yes 2010, not vNext – I’m not giving NDA information out you fool), the design patterns you can use, figuring out challenging issues like security, sessions, and just app design patterns instead. Well, I hope you like my next article, SharePoint Applied: Azure ServiceBus and SharePoint 2010 Enjoy! Read full article ....

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• Collision detection with entities/AI

  - by James Williams

  I'm making my first game in Java, a top down 2D RPG. I've handled basic collision detection, rendering and have added an NPC, but I'm stuck on how to handle interaction between the player and the NPC. Currently I'm drawing out my level and then drawing characters, NPCs and animated tiles on top of this. The problem is keeping track of the NPCs so that my Character class can interact with methods in the NPC classes on collision. I'm not sure my method of drawing the level and drawing everything else on top is a good one - can anyone shed any light on this topic?

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• Can an object oriented program be seen as a Finite State Machine?

  - by Peretz

  This might be a philosophical/fundamental question, but I just want to clarify it. In my understanding a Finite State Machine is a way of modeling a system in which the system's output will not only depend on the current inputs, but also the current state of the system. Additionally, as the name suggests it, a finite state machine can be segmented in a finite N number of states with its respective state and behavior. If this is correct, shouldn't every single object with data and function members be a state in our object oriented model, making any object oriented design a finite state machine? If that is not the interpretation of a FSM in object design, what exactly people mean when they implement a FSM in software? am I missing something? Thanks

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• The only metric with any value

  - by Malcolm Anderson

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} There's a lot of talk in the Scrum world about metrics. What's the velocity? How big is a story point?  How many story points is that team producing per man hour?   People are sadly missing the whole point.  Take your measurements up a level or two.  When you get down to it, the only metric that makes any difference, is ROI.   The problem is that often times, the developers work in a dark hole, far removed from the realities of how exactly they get paid.  A bigger problem is that mid-level managers tend to be further removed from the realities of ROI.  A lot of times mid-level managers get tasked with tracking their teams "productivity" using things like, "lines of code", or "completeness of the productivity reports."   Monetize your projects and then track your velocity against business value (real dollars).    When your development teams can say, "Last year, our team cost the business 2 million dollars and we know that because of our efforts, the company saved 2 million dollars in waste and increased revenues by another 4 million dollars." At that point you have just moved your development team from a cost center, to a profit center.  You might have to give them a raise, but they have demonstrated that they have earned it.

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• ORACLE OPENWORLD - DAY 3 LINUX SESSIONS and ICE CREAM SOCIAL

  - by Zeynep Koch

  It had been two days of amazing sessions but we have more to come.  Day 3 will bring following sessions for Oracle Linux fans: Wed, October 3rd: Hands On Lab: Oracle Linux Package Management, 10:15am, Marriot Salon, 14/15 YB level Hands On Lab: Oracle Linux Storage Management, 12:45pm, Marriot Salon, 14/15 YB level Why Switch to Oracle Linux, 3:30pm, Moscone South #270 We also have a great Ice Cream Social to cool you down in this weather. Visit our Oracle Linux Pavilion, Moscone South #1033 between 1-2pm to see Partners that support Oracle Linux and Oracle VM and grab your ticket for an ice cream sponsored by QLogic. We look forward to seeing you in these great events.

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• Drag and drop fearture for a website

  - by gpuguy

  I have to design a website which will have drag and drop features for creating an e-card. So you select items from a tool box and drag and drop this item on the card area. Once you have completed the design you can publish the e-card on the web by clicking "Save and publish" button. What are the possible technologies for implementing this feature? The requirement is that the application should not degrade the performance of the website, and should not take much time in publishing once the user click "Save and publish" button.

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• Should I put an app I wrote on my résumé even if it has low ratings?

  - by charliehorse55

  Last summer I wrote an iPhone app for the Toronto Film Festival. The development was pretty rushed, and the design goals were changed multiple times. In particular, the central film list view controller was redesigned three times in the week before launch. I forgot to update one of my functions to match the changed design, and the app shipped with a serious bug. While the app was fairly popular, this bug crippled the app and it got a lot of poor reviews. I fixed the bug as soon as I got a crash report, but it got stuck in the iTunes review process for the duration of the film festival. Should I put this app on my résumé? The app has poor ratings and most of the reviews mention crashes, but it's also the only work experience I have. Additionally, how should I approach this topic in an interview? Here is the iTunes link for the app: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/official-tiff/id550151899?mt=8

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• How to model interentity membership in entity-component architecture?

  - by croxis

  I'm falling in love with simple grace of entity-component design, although I still have issues breaking from MVC and OOP practices. Some of my game entities have membership relationships with each other (ex: a player is a member of a city, a city is a member of a nation), and I am unsure on the best way to implement it. My initial reaction is to have a a MemberOfCity component that points to the appropriate city component, but components are suppose to have no references to each other. My other option is to have a System do it, but that would require the system to persist data outside of a component. Is there a clean way to do this in an entity-component design, or am I trying to use a hammer on a screw and should use a hybrid/another approach?

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• Need help identifing what resources (eg. In MIT OpenCourseWare) can help me prepare for a test [closed]

  - by jiewmeng

  I am entering uni soon. I can sit for a placement test to see if I elegible for exemptions. The details are http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/undergraduates/TestScope11_12.html Or CS2100 Computer Organisation (please click title) The objective of this module is to familiarise students with the fundamentals of computing devices. Through this module students will understand the basics of data representation, and how the various parts of a computer work, separately and with each other. This allows students to understand the issues in computing devices, and how these issues affect the implementation of solutions. Topics covered include data representation systems, combinational and sequential circuit design techniques, assembly language, processor execution cycles, pipelining, memory hierarchy and input/output systems. Recommended Textbooks Digital Design: Principles and Practices [DDPP] by John F. Wakerly, Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-324500-4. Computer Organizations and Design (The hardware/software interface) by David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy. CS2105 Introduction to Computer Networks (please click title) This course aims to provide a broad introduction to computer networks and some appreciations of network application programming. It covers a range of topics including basic data communication and computer network concepts, protocols, networked computing concepts and principles, network applications development and network security. The emphasis of teaching is on the working principles and application of computer networks. As an integral part of the course, tutorials and practical assignments enforcing learning will also be given. These assignments provide an early exposure in network application programming and they should be able to complete by using personal computers and school's network facilities. Topics included: An overview of computer networks and the Internet Basic data communications Application layer Transport layer Network layer and routing Link layer and local area networks Recommended Textbook James F. Kurose & Keith W. Ross, Computer networking: A top-down approach featuring internet, Addison Wesley, 2001 I am wondering what resources eg. MIT OpenCourseWare or other universities resources are available to help he perpare for these particular modubles. I am thinking does the Networking one look like CCNA? The computer oragization. Its like electronics, assembly etc? I learnt some electronics in Poly but looking at the sample papers, uni looks very different... I have about 1 month to prepare if I want any chance of exempting from these modules :) any help?

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• Generation 4 Modular Data Center

  - by kaleidoscope

  Microsoft’s launched Generation 4 Modular Data Center design at the PDC 09 - The 20-foot container built on container-based model. Microsoft says the use of server-packed containers – known as Pre-Assembled Components (PACs) – will allow it to slash the cost of building its new data centers. Completely optimized for outdoor use, with a design that relies upon fresh air (”free cooling”) rather than air conditioning. Its exterior is designed to draw fresh air into the cold aisle and expel hot air from the rear of the hot aisle. More details can be found at: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/11/18/microsofts-windows-azure-cloud-container/   Rituraj, J

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• Which specific practices could be called "software craftsmanship" rather than "software engineering"?

  - by FinnNk

  Although not a new idea there seems to have been a big increase in the interest in software craftsmanship over the last couple of years (notably the often recommended book Clean Code's full title is Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship). Personally I see software craftsmanship as good software engineering with an added interest in ensuring that the end result is a joy to work with (both as an end user and as someone maintaining that software) - and also that its focus is more at the coding level of things than the higher level process things. To draw an analogy - there were lots of buildings constructed in the 50s and 60s in a very modern style which took very little account of the people who would be living in them or how those buildings would age over time. Many of those buildings rapidly developed into slums or have been demolished long before their expected lifespans. I'm sure most developers with a few years under their belts will have experienced similar codebases. What are the specific things that a software craftsman might do that a software engineer (possibly a bad one) might not?

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• Custom graph comparison?

  - by user57828

  I'm trying to compare two graphs using hash value ( i.e, at the time of comparison, try to avoid traversing the graph ) Is there a way to make a function such that the hash values compared can also lead to determining at which height the graphs differ? The comparisons between two graphs are to be made by comparing children at a certain level. One way to compare the graphs is have a final hash value for the root node and compare them, but that wouldn't directly reflect at which level the graphs differ, since their immediate children might be the same ( or any other case ).

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• What is the XACT API?

  - by EddieV223

  I wanted to use DirectMusic in my game, but it's not in the June 2010 SDK, so I thought that I had to use DirectSound. Then I saw the XAudio2.h header in the SDK's include folder and found that XAudio2 is the replacement for DirectSound. Both are low-level. During my research I stumbled across the XACT API, but can't find a good explanation on it. Is XACT to XAudio2 what DirectMusic was to DirectSound? By which I mean, is the XACT API a high-level, easier-to-use API for playing sounds that abstracts away the details of XAudio2? If not, what is it?

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